Tourism Ireland has spent €3m on a new website that’s been made in England — including €500,000 for the domain name Ireland.com.

The tourist organisation defended the decision to award the lucrative contract to an English web design company, saying it was chosen after an EU-wide tender process.

This led to London company Hugo & Cat being chosen to design the new Ireland.com website. It had made the best offer on cost and technical grounds, said Tourism Ireland chief executive Niall Gibbons … “In the context of an industry that’s looking to generate €3.6bn this year, I think it’s going to represent excellent value for money.”